


Spillage

by QuillerQueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, OQ Missing Year, OQ Prompt Party 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Prompt 36: "Spilled wine". Regina descends into darkness in her grief over Henry's loss, and Robin is there for her.





	Spillage

Spring arrives late, and the denizens of the castle spill out into the courtyards to soak up the first proper rays of sunshine. Princess Snow sets to organising a grand picnic, and Regina’s spectacular eyeroll lands upon Robin in a conspiratorial gesture that makes his heart skip recklessly. They’ve been...friendlier, lately. The banter remains, thank goodness, has evolved into a ritual between them that’s playful, teasing, bold, but without bite, with no volatile outbursts in weeks. Things have been...well, nice. Bloody amazing, if he’s being honest.

It all goes to hell one brisk morning in May.

Regina appears at breakfast decked out in full regalia, complete with dark hair piled high atop her head, thick lines of kohl rimming her eyes, and one of those pitch-black, high-collared, full-skirt gowns whose tightly-laced corset alone would give the outfit the appearance of armour—and the whole look is exactly that, the Queen, donned to disguise Regina from the world.

She’s no kind word to spare that day, no warm look or teasing repartee. Not even for Roland, for the moment she sees his boy, Regina swerves and takes however long a detour she needs to avoid Roland’s wide eyes and puzzled pout. She doesn’t show at dinner, and the princess is the only one in the room, possibly with the exception of Roland and himself, who sighs not with relief but concern.

“Do you by any chance have a theory as to this sudden shift, Your Highness?”

“I’m afraid not,” she shakes her head, destitute.

“We have bigger problems,” huffs Granny from behind Robin’s shoulder. “Another cask of wine has gone missing. If you can’t keep your men in check—”

“I’ll have a word with Tuck,” Robin promises, irked with his men and their apparent inability to stick to even the most trivial of rules. Old habits may die hard, and Robin may overlook a petty theft now and then, but Granny has an understandably low tolerance for anyone pilfering from her larder. They’ve been over this after all, have discussed the need to ration their food  _ and _ wine lest they run out of resources before the new crop comes in.

A word with Tuck it is, then—a loud, explosive one in fact, uncharacteristically authoritative for Robin, and he’s torn between instant guilt and a dark sense of relief. It doesn’t help any that his men clamour to deny any wrongdoing.

Fuck, he’s worried. He’s worried about Regina, worried that that self-destructive streak of hers might be at play. Worrying makes him distracted, moody, and short-fused.

She’s going to hate being checked on. She’s going to fling fireballs, to spit and snarl, perhaps put him in his place, quite literally, amid a cloud of purple that’ll clear to reveal him standing back in the Merry Men’s quarters.

It seems Regina hasn’t on one occasion called him a stubborn ass for nothing, for Robin knows the risk and still decides it’s worth it if it means laying the gnawing doubts to rest.

Night has fallen when he sneaks shadow-like through empty hallways to the Queen’s chambers and knocks on the massive door.

“Enter or leave...I couldn’t care less,” comes her raspy response.

So Robin lets himself in as his dark premonition takes on a more distinct shape at such a peculiar welcome—and finds Regina in a state quite unlike anything he imagined.

Regina is sprawled on the chaise next to what looks suspiciously like a casket of red. She lies in a disarray of dark locks falling freely, her corset half-undone and her silk underskirt stained with wine. Parts of her complicated dress lie scattered across the chamber in all states of destruction, as if she’d forgotten she could undress herself with magic and tried to disentangle herself from their confines on her own, ripping and tearing where coaxing had yielded no results. Robin, in an attempt to step over the sorry things, slips and slides instead in murky puddles smelling of liquor.

“Some sight for a queen, eh?” she slurs with a dark chuckle—always lucid enough for a self-deprecating comment, it seems.

“Regina,” Robin shakes his head, can’t help this sadness that overcomes him. She should have had someone to drink with, at the very least. A friend, a willing ear. Someone to make sure she’s safe while she seeks oblivion. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she sniffs, looking at the upside-down gobet in her hand, mesmerised by the drops it bleeds onto her marble floor. “’m all out.”

Well, then.

“How much of that did you actually drink?” he prompts softly, relieving her of the empty goblet.

“Not nearly enough.”

“Enough to—?”

“Forget.”

She’s hurting—which, regrettably, is far from new for her—and he can’t help.

He’s company though. He can—what? Hold her hair when the contents of her stomach inevitably make their way back out again? Hold her hand while she pours her heart out? As if she’d ever let him do either. But he wants to. Oh how he wants to do something, anything, to ease her pain.

“Wanna be use—,” a hiccough cuts her words in half, “useful for once, Thief?” She pushes herself up on her elbows, licks her lips suggestively, and leans forward with a breathy: “Make me forget.”

“Regina—”

She’s on him then—quite literally, for as she reaches for him, she almost keels over, her tumble and fall only prevented by his own body as he takes her in his arms. Her mouth finds his, sloppy and desperate, and he’s wanted to be kissing those lips so much, for so long—but not like this, never like this.

So he grabs her shoulders and pushes her away gently, only enough to respond to her confused pout by pressing a tender peck to her sweat-slicked brow..

“I’m here,” he whispers, for that’s the best he has to offer right now, what he suspects she truly needs. He trails his fingers through wine-drenched hair, presses a gentle palm to the small of her back to stroke up and down her spine. “I’m here, darling.”

Great heaving sobs rack her body, her frame so small without its guise of grand gowns, high heels and bravado, as her voice splinters over every broken word of the choked confession—it’s the anniversary of the day she adopted her boy, the son forever lost to her.

He can’t do much, can’t do anything at all to bring Henry back to her, can do precious little to lessen her suffering—but what little he can do, he will. He’ll hold her for as long as she lets him, and whisper nonsense into her ear until her breathing evens out and she melts in his embrace. He’ll undress her blindly, help her into a fresh nightdress, then gather warm blankets around her shivering form. Then he’ll set about cleaning the chamber, ever watchful over her troubled sleep.

Or so he thinks—until at long last, she speaks.

“Stay,” she says, perfectly clearly, even though her eyes remain closed.

It’s a reasonable request—she might be ill later, might need assistance—that comes from a different place though, from a sentimental place she hardly ever bares to anyone.

Perhaps it’s the same place whence comes the swell of affection that now engulfs Robin.

“As milady wishes.”

Robin spends the night lying on the other side of the bed, staring into the dark and seeing only Regina’s melancholy smile before she finally gave in to exhaustion.  
  



End file.
